Mas sticks are the real deal. Addressing your comments above...
All: in addtion to comments to b1 below, remember that these sticks may require some wiring and maintenance to either configure or upkeep. But an advantage is they are repairable, if the home sticks break then you're generally screwed.
Dark Lord SPAM and Neo Bomber man: $90 per stick is a lot, but how much are gold sticks going for if you buy them separately from the AES? $60? The buttons are good on either, but the stick on the Mas blows away the gold, it just rolls way better. I have a friend who likes CD/gold better because of the tighter radius, but I can't stand them.
theman: yes they are big, I've gotten used to using them as a lap control but it took me awhile
Caris: agreed. But unless you have experience doing this, I would recommend owning these sticks as an intermediate step.
b1: the 8-button sticks are great for the Neo, but mine were delivered with the same wiring as yours. Had to open, desolder, and reconnect, but that wasn't too hard. I now have 1234 working on the Neo Geo and 123567 working for CPS2 without having to rewire when swapping boards (had to wire 4 and 5 together). I highly recommend desoldering all of the wires from the buttons and using female disconnects instead, it will make your life much easier!
samuraiX: maybe they have a deal for 2? Otherwise I'd get one and check it out. The best deal is when you get the sticks with a Supernova, but that only makes sense if you want to go MVS instead of AES.